Stroke is an emergency!

In Germany, a stroke occurs every three minutes, and it turns out to be lethal for about every third patient. A further third survives with severe disabilities. Anyone can have a stroke, but the risk increases with age. Due to demographic changes in our society, direct costs of medical treatment are estimated to exceed 100 billion Euro in Germany over the next two decades.

Time is Brain!

There is an efficient, but high-risk therapy (thrombolysis) for the most frequent type of stroke. However, this therapy can only be applied by experienced doctors (ideally stroke unit specialists) within three hours after symptom onset and only after a computed tomography (CT) of the head has been completed. Therefore currently only 3 % of all patients receive thrombolytic therapy.

This holds especially for rural areas as e.g. the north of Saxony-Anhalt, where the therapy is currently not available. Therefore, emergency treatment of stroke patients is of immense importance: reliable diagnosis of the condition by the EMS, choice of a suitable hospital, and early involvement of the hospital in the emergency treatment pathways have the potential to considerably improve the quality of medical care.